A Man With Buttons Like Tears

Lincoln, Nebraska.

The Impala's engine whines under the pressure. It's high summer, high noon, and the suffocating heat of Lincoln's yearly heat-wave burns the asphalt of the highway. The air shimmers with it, creating mirages and oasis' in the distance, tempting weary travellers off the road. Dust feathers from the road-side, staining the shiny metal of passing vehicles, coating the faces, lungs, eyelashes of their occupants. The Impala huffs and puffs, her engine desperate for a reprieve. Dean sympathises, his throat dry and his back sweat-soaked.

The Winchesters are on the move. Miles of road before their destination - a hunt, their reward. Too many miles, suffocating heat and an anxiousness that has nothing to do with a hunt burdens them, and the reprieve of a cool motel room and cooler beer - their own personal oasis, offers little comfort.

It's a bad hunt already, and they haven't even figured out what they're after.

Too many bad memories and the echo of a dead mans last hunt creates a distance between them. A silence that isn't awkward, isn't friendly, isn't camaraderie has hung over them since Illinois, two states over and a half-dozen failed attempts at distraction away. Lincoln, Nebraska. America's heartland, Dean Winchester's wasteland.

This is the way a life ends, not with a bang but with a whimper. John Winchester dead at fifty-two. His skin unmarked and unsullied save for the bruises of an old fight - cause of death: cardiac arrest. A life spent raging against the dying of the night and it ends like so. Cue explanations, platitudes and warnings; he was a heavy drinker, lived on a diet of road-side convenience stores and had thenty-two years of cold hard fear racked up underneath tough skin and tougher love. Those kinds of strains, stresses on the heart, cause irreparable damage. Cause and effect.

How'd you feel, when you knew your Daddy went for you?

Dean knows better. Knows intimately that John Winchester's untimely death had less to do with his personal demons and more to do with his actual. But that thought still gets caught in his throat, lifetimes later in terms of the battlefield, lives won and lives lost, grand, epic, freaking apocalyptic battles, and his own timeline is ticking down now - fast, so fast.

Hold that mortals thread good and tight.

A year to live and its whooshing by so quickly, blink and there's an hour gone, a day, a week. A year.

It's a fire sale and everything must go.

It's a better shake then your Dad ever got.

Too much heat, too many miles, too long a silence. Too much introspection. Gotta keep that game face on Dean-o.

Masks all that nasty pain, masks the truth.

The truth? Yeah he's scared shitless, but he's here, alive, hunting things, saving people, and he's not doing it alone. And there's the kicker. He knows he's a hypocrite, he knows how Sam feels, but can he care? Do the means and terms of his father's deal justify the end result? His own words come rushing back, seemingly foolish and naïve now;

What's dead, should stay dead.

Because Sam is still sitting next to him, breathing, yawning, whining, brooding - when not a month and a half ago he was rotting flesh in an abandoned house, and Dean can't regret his terms, his means. The Winchester family making deals with devils, sacrifice and death around and around, until all that's left is Sam.

The soul survivor. Heh.

Somehow Dean doubts that Sam will appreciate his humour. Sam who hasn't cracked a smile in at least two hundred miles. Ungrateful bastard.

Slapping on a grin, he turns to sing loudly and obnoxiously at Sam, until the desired effect is achieved, and Sam finally cracks one lousy, stupid smile. It makes Dean's heart clench.

XXXXXX

The case that brings them to Lincoln is particularly messy, even for them. The entire city seems to be up in flames, both literal and figurative. There's been a rash of nasty murder-suicides, several homes, offices and small business set on fire, and to top it off there are over twenty catatonic patients holed up in a special ward of St Mary's hospital. The professionals are baffled. The cops are mystified, the doctors are clueless - it's nasty business abound in Lincoln, and it's nobody's job but the Winchesters.

The grisly business of cleaning up after a supernatural attack takes many forms, and this one is freakier than most. Without any sort of clear pattern, or even any real evidence that these attacks are indeed supernatural, Dean already feels out of his depth. The nervous energy that's been humming under his skin since Cold Oak ratchets up a few notches as they get closer, and his fingers clench the steering wheel. His body is thrumming, his knuckles are turning white and his game face is slipping. He needs to move.

'How many miles left 'til Lincoln?'

The answer he gets is welcomed with a grin, and he floors the gas. Only sixty miles left till a cold shower, a stiff drink and a fast fuck. Maybe not in that order. It's late in the afternoon and twilight is sneaking in. The day is officially over, and another number is rubbed off the calendar. He drives faster, the Impala still whines. Sorry baby girl.

He's gonna have to teach Sam to look after her before. . Sam interrupts his chain of thought, lamely attempting conversation, some meaningless kind of small talk that speaks volumes more about Sam's state of mind than the state of the government he's bad-mouthing, but Dean is a master of denial if nothing else and the conversation ends before it begins. Another failed attempt at distraction.

Dean pulls over into the first Super 8 he sees.

XXXXXX

Researching with Sam is gruelling. He's a hard task master, and Dean wishes Sam could see their father in his determination. John Winchesters weapon of choice may have been the sword to Sam's mighty pen, but the enthusiasm and cold determination is borne from the same source. The irony of the situation is not lost on Dean, as his second-hand life is passed from John through Dean and onto Sam - a gift to behold, and Sam still refutes their similarity. John's very essence may as well be coursing through Sam's veins, his sacrifice pumping Sam's blood. . . And, yeah, Dean is a master of denial. John's sacrifice, not his.

The room is stifling, and denial is the only way of catching his breath. There's a fan in the corner by the TV, whinnying softly under the stress of functioning in such heat, and every twelve seconds Dean gets a short burst of cool air across his face, no more than a breath. He finds himself counting down the seconds till his next fix . . . Six - five - four - three - two - whoosh. . He leans his face into the gust, desperate for the cool air.

He feels more than hears Sam's shift.

'Dude, what are you doing?'

'Just, uh, thinking about the case. Y'know, the possibility of demonic possession versus, uh . . .'

And he runs out of steam, caught skiving off.

'Dean you haven't flipped a page in like, ten minutes. C'mon man, I know you don't want to be here, but the faster we get this done, the faster we can leave,' he says, in that annoying placating tone better suited directed at a toddler. No he doesn't want to be here, but he's a god dam grown-ass man, and a professional at that. Fuck Sam and his fucking tone.

This case is just too much too soon, too many freshly healed wounds being pulled open, and the stifling air is compressing all his anxieties somewhere behind his left eye. He has a pounding headache, and a desperate need to get out. A cool beer, a fast fuck - whatever, as long as there's air conditioning, and a distinct lack of Sam.

'Okay man, I'm gonna go out,' he tries to say as breezily as possible, like its no big deal, nothing to see here. He flips closed his book, grabs his keys and makes his way towards the door.

'I'll be back later, we can figure this out then, I just need a break, dude, my eyes are swimming,' he attempts in his own placating tone. But his is better, he's been using it longer. He has the luxury of actually having used it on Sam when he was still a kid.

He's still a fucking kid. Leave him alone for five fucking minutes and look what happens. . .

But he's not going there tonight, no sir. His mind is over-worked, emotions pushed to the fore. Cue frontal lobe shut-down. His retreat towards the door continues as he checks through his wallet; cash, check, fake ID, check, condoms, check. Knife in boot, check, lock pick in front right jean pocket, check. Good to go. He slips his wallet in his back pocket and reaches for the door handle, so close.

And this is when Sam stands up, all slow and purposeful, his face like a thunderstorm. A storm in a teacup. A really mother-fucking big teacup. Sam walks towards Dean, still with that same stance, shoulders hunched and looming, face darkening ever more. Dean is still attempting to shuffle awkwardly through the threshold, his escape is so close, but so far, just two more steps and he would be home free. .

But Sam is looming over him now, a sight that would surely be fearsome for most, given the 6'4 of gigantic, but to Dean Sam just kinda looks constipated, because Dean taught Sam how to loom, and has known him since he took his first successful piss in a toilet, let alone his first successful loom, and before then, and after then, and when Sam almost lost his virginity to Sally Lawson in the tenth grade but wussed out at the crucial moment, and when he got so wasted three nights before the Stanford bombshell dropped that he threw up all over their Dad's shoes, and when he had no fight left in him at all, stabbed in the back and bleeding out all over an old, stained mattress.

Either way, Sam's looming is pointless. But it doesn't look like its stopping there. It looks like Dean's going to be getting a talking too. Maybe Sam realises the pointlessness of his looming skills in this particular juncture. Dean really hopes not, a good loom really out does a good heart-to-heart any day of the week.

Here we go, he thinks mournfully, as Sam does his work up to the Big Confrontation. He's doing that gaping fish move, mouthing words that never take flight - too enraged to even voice his fury. And sure, Dean knows he's being a pain in the ass skipping out when the research is happening, but so what? It's not as if he's never done it before, he's never exactly been the brains of this operation. Just the arms, legs and face; muscle tone and easy lies.

'Dude, how can you just say that?' The tirade begins, smoothly enough. At least it's not, 'You're a hypocrite, you're gonna die, you don't even care, I hate you and O.M.G. you're the worst brother, like, ever,' because that was seriously getting old.

'Like it's nothing? Like, oh I'm just gonna fuck off now for a couple of hours, good luck solving the case?' Sam always had had a penchant for over dramatics, that is totally not what this is. Feeling the need to defend his honour and dedication, he steps in.

'Sam,' he sighs loudly, because Dean's not pretending that he can't do the drama as well as his brother, he just doesn't indulge as often. He has found, however, that a well placed sigh can really pack a punch.

'Man, I'm just tired. I been driving all day, my backs cramped up, my legs are hurtin' - I just want to have a drink y'know? Unwind.' He emphasises his point with a roll of the shoulders, seemingly to untense the muscles. Here is normally where Sam lets up, or at least fesses up to being in need of a break too, but this day is different, and neither Sam nor Dean can pretend that they're not feeling the burn of grief, of anger and of hopelessness a little more harshly tonight, emotions a little more volatile than usual.

It seems that Sam has won this round though, as Dean concedes his point. Stupid pain-in-the-ass brothers, making with the guilt, and he moves reluctantly to settle back in, placing his keys on the bedside table and shifting off his jacket. He's been keeping a fifth of Jack in his duffel since the big deal went down, restocking as necessary, and tonight is a night for hard liquor, whether its enjoyed from a glass short or a plastic motel cup.

He reaches to retrieve the alcohol, taking a long pull before turning around to offer the bottle to Sam. He's nothing if not a giver. What greets him is not the placating Sam he'd been expecting, the happy Sam - glad to have reached a compromise, but a murderous looking doppelganger. Dean opens his mouth to question, cajole, comfort, but before he can say anything Sam is on him again, up close and personal, breathing right into Dean's mouth.

'Fuck you Dean,' he says harshly, but quietly. 'Fuck you very much, but it's my turn tonight and I am going out. If you can throw your life away in shitty dives, then I sure as shit can too. Gimme the keys.' Struck dumb by the sight before him, and the sheer volume of curse words he's just heard from his normally well-spoken brother, Dean fishes for the keys. Dropping them into Sam's outstretched hand, he adds a warning of his own.

'That car better come back looking better than it does now, asswipe,' he leers in a hopefully threatening tone. No need to let Sam think he's got a monopoly on threatening voices. He's the bad-ass threat-maker in this family.

And with that Sam turns on his heel, with the malicious grin of a guy you wouldn't trust with a bike, let alone a car plastered all over his face. The door slams behind him, sending in road dust from the street outside and Dean coughs in the exhale. He turns around slowly, taking another pull from the Jack to soothe the burn in his throat as he surveys the room.

Super, no Sam and some hard liquor. Exactly what he wanted. Right?

XXXXXX

Three hours later and Sam still hasn't arrived back. Dean hopes with a spiteful intent that Sam has struck out of luck with the ladies and is moping in the corner of a bar somewhere, still nursing the luke warm beer he purchased, oh. . two hours and forty-five minutes ago.

He wonders if this is the way Sam feels when Dean's off hooking up, and Sam is left alone in the motel. He always figured it as more Sam's bag to chill in the room and read or whatever, but looking at the situation from this perspective - it's pretty god-damn lonely. On the plus side he seems to be making some headway with the case, and maybe this time it'll be Sam who comes home to a case that's all-but-solved and a whiny-ass brother bitching about whatever it is Sam always bitches about. Dean's even made some nice little notes and everything, and who said he wasn't the considerate and caring brother?

Calling it an early night, he sets about his evening ministrations - shower, teeth brushing, clean shorts. He moves the fan to the bedside table in between his and Sam's bed, and prays that it keeps up the good fight, and doesn't pussy out before morning. If there's one thing Dean hates, it's being too hot when he sleeps. Sleep is elusive enough these days, and Dean needs sharp eyes and fast reflexes on a hunt that has him already so out of his depth.

Minutes, and then an hour passes by and he's still tossing and turning, trying to get comfortable.

12.37

1.02

1.25

2.16

And he still can't sleep, thoughts running through his head unbidden, memories and reminders of the dead and dying, mentally tallying up the numbers left on his calendar instead of counting sheep.

Fuck this, and in one smooth motion he's reaching for the Jack, finishing the bottle in three long gulps. The burn comforts and punishes, and he settles in again - this time confident that sleep will come.

XXXXXX

His dreams are fragmented, memories pooling at his feet as he desperately tries to cling on to them, knowing that somehow what's happening is important and he needs to pay attention. There are flashes of skin and blood, dark hair and dark eyes. He reaches out to try to stop them all moving so fast, but his arms are thick and heavy and his fingers are too clumsy to catch, he can't understand and he's afraid.

He knows what this is in some part of his brain and he's assembling the information even as he tries desperately to deny it. And then at some moment between waking and sleeping, when his dreams are fever-vivid and hardest to forget, the fragments assemble wholly, pushing right into the forefront of his mind. It's Sam, because it's always Sam, looking down in horror as his body is cut to ribbons by invisible hands - torso, the length of his arms, criss-cross across his legs - blood gurgling up to the surface and running down his skin like rain. Dean can't attempt to help, the damage too far gone. Sam looks up at him, wicked glint in his eye and taunts -

'What did you think would happen when you left me Dean?'

Jerking awake with a cry dying on his lips, he immediately searches out Sam, who's sacked out with his back facing him in the other bed. It's almost like he's saying fuck you in his sleep, and Dean rolls his eyes at the recent bout of pseudo-teenage rebellion Sam seems to have picked up these last few weeks. Acting like Dean's been playing Dad, and it's Sam's god-given right to whine and moan about every petty little aspect of their lives.

Checking the digital clock he concludes that it's time to rise and shine, they got victims to observe and family members to harass. Another busy day for the Winchester clan. Ungrateful people to save, terrifying creatures of the night to hack to death.

XXXXXX

A/N This is my first attempt at writing something with an actual plot, let alone my first attempt at anything multi-chaptered! I hope to update every week, I have this whole thing planned so hopefully it'll work out well.

Since it's such unknown territory for me, I would seriously appreciate feedback! Thanks a million for reading.

The title comes from Elizabeth Bishop's poem Sestina. It's kind of about loss and uncertain futures, so considering the boy's predicament I thought it might be suitable - I would really recommend giving it a look, it's a really cool poem.